iOS 8 beta 2 now available for download

Apple released its first iOS 8 beta on June 2nd and anyone who has installed it since then knows it’s a bit rough around the edges. Of course, this is entirely expected — Apple’s early iOS betas are always riddled with issues that Apple fixes in the months leading up to its public release. Though tens of thousands of non-developers install the software on their personal devices each year, it is intended only for developers so they can update their apps and build new ones ahead of iOS 8’s release this fall. They also help Apple identify bugs, of course, and their feedback has been put to use in iOS 8 beta 2, which is now available to download.

iOS 8 beta 2 is now available for developers with compatible iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices as an over the air (OTA) download and as a download from Apple’s developer portal. The new software addresses a number of bugs from the first iOS 8 beta, and we’ll update this post with Apple’s full release notes / change log as soon as we receive them.

Introduction
iOS SDK 8.0 provides support for developing iOS apps. It is packaged with a complete set of Xcode tools, compilers, and frameworks for creating apps for iOS and OS X. These tools include the Xcode IDE and the Instruments analysis tool, among many others.

With this software you can develop apps for iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 8. You can also test your apps using the included iOS Simulator, which supports iOS 8. iOS SDK 8.0 requires a Mac computer running OS X v10.9.3 (Mavericks) or later.

This version of iOS is intended for installation only on devices registered with the Apple Developer Program. Attempting to install this version of iOS in an unauthorized manner could put your device in an unusable state.

Authentication
Known Issue
Projects using LocalAuthentication won’t build if the Destination is set to iOS Simulator.

AVCapture
Known Issues
The API returns incorrect values in some cases.
Use of the AVCaptureDevice method rampToVideoZoomFactor:withRate: will fail.
Use of the new constant, AVCaptureISOCurrent, will result in inconsistent ISO values (as observed on the ISO property) if setExposureModeCustomWithDuration:ISO:completionHandler: is called repeatedly.
In some configurations, the maxBracketedCaptureStillImageCount property on AVCaptureStillImageOutput will yield incorrect results.
Backup
Fixed in beta 2
Certain apps may crash on launch consistently if they came over from a Restore from Backup.

Known Issue
If you do a clean installation, iCloud Backups may not be completely restored to your device.

Workaround: Use iTunes to back up and restore your iOS 8 beta devices.

Battery Life
Known Issue
Extensive console logging of NCLaunchstats may be a cause of reduced battery life.

Workaround: Launch Notification Center, then reboot the device.

Bluetooth
Known Issue
The CoreBluetooth State Preservation & Restoration feature does not work. If your application is jetsammed while in the background performing long-term action(s) with CoreBluetooth, those applications will cease and the application will not be restored.

Bug Reporter
Known Issues
The switch in Developer Settings to hide Bug Reporter is not working.
Workaround: Remove it from the Notification tab in Notification Center settings.

The Bug Reporter icon does not appear on the Home Screen on iPad.
Workaround: Open the app from the Notification tab in Notification Center settings.

The cursor may not get placed in the appropriate text field.
Camera Connector
Fixed in beta 2
When attached, the camera connector is not offered as an import option.

CarPlay
Fixed in beta 2
After using Siri, audio quality goes to 24KHz regardless of where it was originally set.
CarPlay may crash when pressing the Back button when in Now Playing.
Known Issues
When using the knob only, the highlight can move off screen but the scroll position of view doesn’t follow.
The Now Playing screen is missing the Back button in the top-left corner.
CFPreferences
Known Issue
After memory pressure events, apps and system services may lose their preferences.

Workaround: Reboot the device.

CloudKit
Known Issues
Clients sending multiple simultaneous record update requests to the same zone in the private database may encounter CKErrorZoneBusy errors.
Workaround: Clients should send update requests for a given zone one at a time. In addition, they should handle CKErrorZoneBusy errors by retrying with an exponential back off.

Sometimes, very large syncs may fail.
Contacts
Note
The Address Book UI people picker has been changed for iOS 8. A new mode with new API has been added where the app does not need access to the user’s contacts and the user will not be prompted for access. A temporary copy of the selected person is returned to the app. See ABPeoplePickerNavigationController.h for more details.

In iOS 8 beta 2, you must use the new mode. The old mode has been deprecated with this beta.

See the new PeoplePicker: Picking a Person or Property sample project demonstrating usage of the new mode.

Known Issue
If the user selects a property from a unified contact, an incorrect person for that property may be returned by the people picker.

Document Providers
Note
Your app needs the iCloud entitlement to be able to be used as a document provider.

Fixed in beta 2
After installing or modifying an existing document provider, you may need to restart the device for it to show in the available document providers.
Import/open causes sandbox denial on first try.
Known Issues
Document provider extensions sometimes crash when trying to import a document from a document provider view controller.
Document providers may hang when importing files.
Document provider extension will not load if changes are made to an existing document provider on device.
Workaround: You need to either reboot the device or delete the app and reinstall it.

App icons in the document picker do not show up on iPhones and iPads.
After deploying a FileProvider via Xcode, your documentStorageURL may be nil and cause your extension to crash.
Workaround: Force quit the app and re-use the extension.

Moving some files via UIDocumentPickerViewController may cause a crash if the file was not created locally.
Workaround: Create a local file in the iCloud container and use this URL to move files.

Sometimes, bringing up a Document Provider UI Extension will not show up after redeploying the app via Xcode.
Workaround: Force-quit the app, and then it should appear properly.

FileProvider extensions do not see the host app’s file removed when copying the file to a shared group container.
Extensions
Fixed in beta 2
During a debug session, extensions may time out before loading.
Action extension view controllers do not support full-screen presentation.
Action extensions do not animate smoothly when dismissed.
openURL does not work from an extension.
Sometimes Sharing or Action extensions are not updated properly after enabling or disabling.
Passing NSExtensionItem or NSItemProvider instances to UIActivityViewController does not work.
Known Issues
When Extension with UI is killed, it relaunches and is not dismissed.
Certain types of media, such as those synced from iTunes, are not editable in the Photos app.
Sharing extensions are enabled by default.
Sharing extensions display the name of the project instead of the name of the target.
If a Sharing extension or an Action extension hangs, it may be necessary to kill the hosting application.
Using xpc_service_set_attach_handler to profile app extensions for keyboard does not work.
Workaround: Run your app extension in Simulator, then trigger the Keyboard extension to load and attach to the running instance (for example, com.thirdparty.foo.keyboard (123)) from Instruments’ target chooser.

During a debug session, extensions may time out before loading.
Application extensions may behave unpredictably with respect to location access.
Redeploying an extension may disable it in Notification Center.
Workaround: To debug the Today view extension. use “Attach to process.”

After redeploying an app, the Today view extension may not be launched, and sometimes its bundle display name becomes the name of the app.
Workaround: Reboot the device.

FaceTime
Known Issue
FaceTime does not work properly in landscape orientation.

Family Sharing
Fixed in beta 2
While using the iTunes Store you may experience a spinner that never completes.
Login to iCloud may be slow on iOS.
Shared purchase history page on Mac App Store and iOS App Store are disabled.
You can’t approve an “Ask to Buy” request from the requestor’s iOS device.
Known Issues
“Ask to Buy” request notifications do not appear, and requests are not actionable from devices running iOS 8 beta 2.
Items already owned by family members must be re-downloaded from the Purchased page (not Store pages) to get them free of additional charge.
Under 13 account creation is disabled in this beta.
Email invitations are not enabled; members can join using push notifications or via inline password entry flow.
A blank screen may be seen after creating a family on iPad.
Workaround: Tap on other settings and then back to iCloud settings.

“Ask to Buy” and Family Notifications may not appear due to SpringBoard crashing.
Workaround: Reboot.

File System
Note
The file system layout of app containers has changed on disk. Rather than relying on hard-coded directory structure, use the NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains function or the URLForDirectory:inDomain:appropriateForURL:create:error: method of the NSFileManager class. See Accessing Files and Directories in File System Programming Guide.

Find My iPhone
Fixed in beta 2
If you disable Location Services and choose Don’t Enable when prompted on the Find My iPhone page in Setup Assistant, Find My iPhone will not be enabled.
Triggering Lost mode from iCloud.com will not work on iPads that are at the lock screen.
Fonts
Known Issue
Some Hindi strings are incorrectly displayed, causing search and rendering issues.

Game Center
Fixed in beta 2
Interacting with some menus in Game Center may cause a crash.
Clicking Achievements and Challenges always opens Leaderboards.
Notifications may not go through to a second device.
GameCenterUIService will crash if you try to send matchmaking invites multiple times.
Known Issues
Invites to matchmaking may get stuck on Waiting.
Workaround: Use automatch.

Swiping or tapping a Game Center friend request notification anywhere automatically accepts the friend request.
Handoff
Note
Handoff is incompatible between devices using this beta and the prior beta. You should test Handoff with the most recent beta software because it is not backward-compatible with previous betas.

Fixed in beta 2
Handoff-based Bluetooth connections between devices may stop working after trying to use Handoff.
Handoff does not work properly for document-based apps.
In some cases, not all devices associated with an Apple ID will pair successfully. These devices will be unable to use Handoff, Phone relay, or Tethering.
Some apps that use Handoff will mistakenly show as Safari in the iOS lock screen and OS X Dock.
Directions and Navigation in Maps do not work with Handoff in this beta.
In some cases, using Handoff with Safari will result in an old URL being resumed instead of the current URL.
Known Issues
When using a Mac, Handoff may sometimes stop showing icons on other iOS and OS X devices. Powering the Mac off and then back on can sometimes work around this issue.
Phone Calls to and from the Mac may sometimes not complete or send and receive audio.
HealthKit
Fixed in beta 2
HKCorrelationQuery only returns objects that were saved with correlations. It should return all data entries matching the predicate.
Blood pressure readings saved from Health will not have a correlation stored between the systolic and diastolic readings.
Known Issue
Health does not support locales outside of en-US at this time.

HomeKit
Fixed in beta 2
The “primary” property will not be available in HMService in the future.
A bridge accessory only supports a total of 5 services for all bridged accessories.
Siri may not immediately recognize HomeKit data changes.
Workaround: To trigger an update to Siri, edit other data used by Siri, such as a contact or the name of a Reminders list.

Pairing with the Home Kit Accessory Simulator may fail the first time you try. A second pairing attempt should resolve the issue.
Known Issues
HomeKit Bluetooth LE support is not enabled.
When upgrading from an earlier beta, you may need to remove accessories from Home Kit Accessory Simulator and then re-add them.
iCloud Drive
Notes
Upon upgrading to iOS 8 Beta, existing iCloud Documents & Data present (not evicted) on your device are copied into special server-side containers for use during the beta period.
iCloud Documents & Data created with iOS 8 Beta will not sync with with Documents and Data managed with iOS 7, OS X Mavericks, or earlier operating systems.
iCloud Documents & Data in iOS 8 Beta will only sync with devices running iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite Developer Preview.
iCloud Documents & Data managed with iOS 7 or OS X Mavericks will remain unaffected.
iCloud Documents & Data created with iOS 8 Beta will be deleted from the servers at some point during the beta period. Information downloaded and not evicted from the device will remain on device and will re-sync after the data wipe occurs.
The UI for managing iCloud Documents & Data does not show the documents and data for iOS 8 Beta and OS X Yosemite Developer Preview. It only shows the documents and data synced with previous operating systems.
Known Issues
In some cases, signing into iCloud can take up to two minutes.
Newly added files may not sync automatically. After signing into iCloud, reboot the device.
iCloud Keychain
Fixed in beta 2
Keychain Access developer APIs may not work in Simulator.

Known Issues
Initial sync does not work if the approving device is locked when the approval occurs.
Workaround: Toggle keychain off and then on again.

After changing an iCloud account password, you may notice an “iCloud Keychain has been reset” message.
Workaround: Add your device back into the keychain syncing circle.

iTunes Store
Fixed in beta 2
Opening iTunes Radio URLs from the iTunes Store music grouping page displays a page that asks you to upgrade to iOS 7.
The shelf is not displayed on first sign-in or first launch.
Keyboards
Fixed in beta 2
Deploying a third-party keyboard multiple times may cause the system keyboard to render incorrectly or go blank.
Workaround: Kill the hosting app or reboot the device.

Custom Keyboards do not have Network Access, even after setting the RequestsOpenAccess key to YES in the plist.
Known Issues
In some cases, you may need to restart an app to get third-party keyboard input to register.
If an iPad is restored while in landscape, it may end up with an offscreen keyboard in certain views.
Workaround: Reboot the device.

The requestSupplementaryLexiconWithCompletion: method does not return any lexicon entries.
There is a known performance issue, which is evident as a time lag between viewDidLoad and the textDidChange callbacks firing.
On-screen keyboards do not correctly respond to some notifications (such as layout changes made in Settings).
Workaround: Stop the running process and relaunch it or reboot the simulated device.

Keyboard keys are not being highlighted on some previous-generation devices.
When selecting a keyboard app in the Add New Keyboard menu, you may see an empty sheet. This happens when the containing app has a single keyboard target.
Workaround: To add the keyboard, tap Done on the top-right of the sheet.

The Delete button may not show up when trying to remove an iPad keyboard.
Workaround: Tap on the blank space where the Delete button would be to remove the keyboard.

Localization
Known Issue
There are a number of strings that will display in English for people running the iOS in other languages. Known areas include, but may not be limited to:

Podcasts: not localized for Hindi, Australian English, Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong/zh_HK), or Canadian French
Messages/iChat: “%@’s Location” not localized in any language
Health/Healthkit: not localized for Arabic, Austrailian English, British English, Croatian, Czech, Spanish (Spain), Hebrew, Hindi, Traditional Chinese (both zh_TW and zh_HK), Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese
Spotlight Search “Learn More” explanatory text: not translated
Data Activation Strings “Location is required”, “Location Unavailable”, “Location Disabled”: not translated in all languages
Camera: most UI is not translated in all languages
Location Services
Fixed in beta 2
Apps using visit monitoring that are denied location authorization via Settings may appear to continue using location when they are not.
Visit monitoring may continue if an app is uninstalled while it is monitoring for visits.
When Location Services is turned on, the device’s current location is used to recommend relevant apps on the lock screen. In this beta, this happens whether or not the App Store is enabled for Location Services.
The CLVisit class incorrectly declares the coordinate and horizontalAccuracy properties as read/write.
Known Issue
When Location Services is turned on, the device’s current location is used to suggest relevant apps on the lock screen. These suggested apps will remain on the lock screen even after leaving the relevant location.

Lock Screen
Known Issues
Sometimes devices may not wake when the home button is pushed.
Workaround: Use the sleep/wake/power button.

Tapping Emergency on the lock screen does not do anything.
Lost Mode
Known Issues
A device doesn’t display the Lost Mode message in the lock screen if the device was locked at the time it was put into Lost Mode.
Workaround: Reboot the device.

After remote wiping a device and logging into the same (@icloud.com) iCloud account, the Lost Mode lock screen is displayed and the device cannot be unlocked.
Mail
Fixed in beta 2
On iPad, trying to add a contact via a Suggestion Banner causes Mail to hang.

Known Issue
Sometimes Mail crashes when replying to an email with an attachment.

MapKit
Fixed in beta 2
On iPad, tapping on “Points of Interest” can cause Maps to hang.
MKMapItem called with -[MKMapItem url] that have no URL return “http://(null)&rdquo; when they should return nil.
Known Issue
Taking multiple snapshots using MKMapSnapshotter can sometimes produce a distorted map snapshot.

Media Player
Fixed in beta 2
MediaPlayer.framework – MPVolumeSettingsAlertShow() does not display a volume slider or the AirPlay controller.

Known Issues
SMS relay may not work until an iMessage is sent from the device.
The keyboard may cover the predictive text bar if you launch Messages from the App Switcher.
Music
Fixed in beta 2
Radio Redirect links from product pages do not work.

Newsstand
Known Issue
Content downloaded via NKAssetDownload doesn’t get returned to the app.

Known Issue
User notification custom action buttons don’t show when context is only set to UIUserNotificationActionContextDefault.

Workaround: Set the context to both Default and Minimal.

NSURLSession
Note
Beginning in iOS 8 beta 2, the NSURLSessionTask class provides a new “priority” property with three associated constants: NSURLSessionTaskPriorityDefault, NSURLSessionTaskPriorityLow, and NSURLSessionTaskPriorityHigh. NSURLSessionTask priorities can be used to specify how multiple requests and responses to the same host should be prioritized. Note that the priority is a hint and not a strict guarantee of NSURLSessionTask performance.

For complete usage details of NSURLSessionTask priorities, refer to the NSURLSession.h header file, which is provided by the Foundation framework.

Phone
Fixed in beta 2
Missed calls and recent call info doesn’t always update properly.
Double height status bar does not always dismiss for phone and FaceTime calls.
Sometimes the FaceTime Audio icon appears when FaceTime Audio is not available.
Phone call relay sometimes results in poor audio quality.
Tapping a Maps pin during a call causes a hang.
Known Issues
Bringing up a contact card in Mail during a call causes a hang.
Phone call relay uses Bluetooth when it should be using Wi-Fi. Since not all devices have the necessary Bluetooth support, this may fail on some hardware.
Photos
Notes
Back up your photo libraries before enabling iCloud Photo Library by:
Importing to your Mac using iPhoto
Importing to your Mac using Image Capture
Enabling iCloud Photo Library will not add photos/videos that have been synced with iTunes to the cloud.
iPhoto will not launch. You can edit and organize your photos in the Photos app.
Fixed in beta 2
“Save to Camera Roll” button in a Shared stream doesn’t work.
If you turn off iCloud before disabling iCloud Photo Library, synced photos are still present on your device.
When uploading large libraries, users may encounter a stall when syncing.
If you turn on iCloud Photo Library while an iCloud restore is in progress, your initial upload will not happen until the restore completes.
Items deleted from the Recently Deleted album don’t sync to other devices.
Known Issues
The ability to automatically optimize device space is not enabled in this beta.
When using iCloud Family, both iCloud Photos and My Photostream are enabled.
After restore from iCloud backup, modified photos may show unmodified thumbnails.
If you reach your iCloud quota, there is no way to add or delete data within the Photos app.
Slow motion clips that have been trimmed sync to other devices as a gray thumbnail.
iCloud Photo downloads stall when a device is idle for a long period of time.
Workaround: Sync resumes when the device wakes up.

If both iCloud Photos and Photostream are enabled, duplicate photos are displayed.
iCloud Photo Library does not upload Photos synced from iTunes.
iPhoto for iOS will not launch on iOS 8 Beta. Launching Photos.app will migrate your iPhoto edits to the iOS 8 Photo Library. Make sure your iPhoto for iOS data is included in your device backup.
PhotosUI
Note
PHContentEditingController protocol methods may be called on background threads.

Reminders
Known Issue
When you select Edit in a list of reminders and then scroll, reminders in the list are no longer editable.

Safari
Note
Safari now blocks ads from automatically redirecting to the App Store without user interaction. If you still see the previous behavior, or find legitimate redirection to the App Store to be broken in some way, please file a bug.
You can now quickly add a site to Shared Links or save a bookmark by tapping and holding on the bookmarks button.
Screen Capture
Fixed in beta 2
QuickTime Player X is unable to connect to iPad Air devices for screen capture.

Settings
Fixed in beta 2
Settings sometimes crashes upon addition of a third-party keyboard.
Sometimes Settings shows an iCloud Drive/iCloud Documents incompatibility dialog and will not let you press OK.
The screen brightness slider in Settings does not work.
When signing out of iCloud, the account will actually be signed out, but the UI will not correctly reflect this until the user goes out of iCloud settings and back into it.
iTunes Wi-Fi Sync does not work.
Known Issues
You are unable to use the “Forgot Apple ID or Password” dialog on your device.
Workaround: Reset passwords from appleid.apple.com.

The username and password fields in iCloud Settings do not display properly.
Setup
Known Issues
Updating the iCloud settings screen may appear to hang during setup.
Workaround: Some accounts may have an extra long lag. Wait a couple of minutes and they should complete.

Simulator
Fixed in beta 2
The resizable iPhone does not work.
If a resizable device is being used in iOS Simulator, keyboard input will go to the width and height text fields if they have focus. If you want input to go to the hosted iOS app, you will need to use the Tab key to change focus away from the text field.
Logging into Game Center from the Settings app will result in an error:
Unable to connect to server. The operations couldn’t be completed. (Cocoa error 4097.)
Known Issues
Apps deployed to CarPlay do not launch or display controls.
Changing keyboards in Settings > General > Keyboard requires you to relaunch your app before the new settings are observed.
If you rename Xcode.app after having previously run it, Simulator stops working.
Workaround: Reboot or revert the name change.

The Toggle In-Call Status Bar menu option in the Hardware menu does not work.
You cannot log into an iCloud account in Simulator.
Siri
Known Issues
Localized strings for Voice Activation phrases don’t appear in Settings > General > Siri.
Voice Activation phrase for each Siri Language:

UIKit
Note
UILabel has a default value of YES for clipsToBounds. This differs from the normal UIView default of NO.

Fixed in beta 2
UIScrollViewcontentInset is not set correctly when pushing a navigation controller on a navigation controller in a UISVC.
There is no publicly available way to customize the search key for a UISearchBar.
Known Issues
Share sheets sometimes include the “Send to Shared Photostream” item when they should not.
If an app is using a xib as its main window and is launched in landscape iPad, the main window will have the incorrect dimensions, causing significant distortion and difficulty using presented view controllers. An app may have to be force-quit after presenting a system view controller to function again.
Workaround: Launch all apps in portrait before rotating to landscape.

WebKit
Notes
Subpixel rendering is now on by default for all web content. Websites or in-app web views with extremely tight design constraints may render differently. Solutions for each issue will vary, but use Web Inspector to adjust position, border thickness, and width or height of elements.
In iOS 8.0 beta 2 and later, CSS object model getters (offset{Left|Top|Width|Height} and client{Left|Top|Width|Height}) return fractional double values based on subpixel metrics instead of rounded integral values.
Fixed in beta 2
SecRequestSharedWebCredential and SecAddSharedWebCredential currently only work on device, not in Simulator.

Known Issues
Applications that use Apache Cordova/PhoneGap are broken due to a bug that causes the window.navigator.userAgent object to become undefined when window.navigator is replaced by a pure JavaScript wrapper object.
If you pass NULL for the fqdn parameter of SecRequestSharedWebCredential as recommended, only the first domain in the entitlement is used.
Apps that play video in a UIWebView may fail playback.
Widgets
Fixed in beta 2
Mapviews do not load tiles in widgets.